In an unusual case, mostly because student loans are rarely ever discharged in bankruptcy, a bankruptcy judge in Massachusetts and and the chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts are having a bit of a spat about discharging the student loans of a 2005 law school graduate.
According to The Docket, which is the blog of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Joel B. Rosenthal ruled it would be an undue hardship to force Denise M. Bronsdon to repay $82,000 she owes in law school loans.
Ms. Bronsdon, now 65, graduated in the top half of her class at Southern New England School of Law in 2005. She has since failed the Massachusetts bar exam three times and is currently unemployed, drawing Social Security and living in a room at her father’s house.
The lender appealed the ruling and the U.S. District Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf reinstated the debt and said that Ms. Bronsdon was eligible for a debtor-repayment plan.
Rosenthal has issued a new opinion in response that again discharges the debt and said that putting the debtor into a repayment plan was “a pointless exercise.”
